Root Word Games!

Well friends, today was snow day one thousand. Actually, I am not sure what number it was, but I am calling it June 11th. When I woke up from my morning nap, this ‘snow’ was gone. GONE. Like I said, I call it June 11th.

Ignoring the ‘snow’ day tragedy, my day was quite lovely! PJ and I hung out for a while, I consumed a ridiculous amount of queso, and I was able to put the final touches on some of the activities we’ve been doing in literacy centers. Earlier in the year, I shared some of the routines I’ve embedded into our classroom to learn about Greek and Latin Roots. So, now I wanted to highlight some of the hands-on learning we have been doing during our literacy center time.

During one of our literacy centers, students work on their interactive reading notebooks. Each time I’ll trade out skills, but as of late, students have been using markers (oooohhhhh) to practice root words. I have a master list that I keep at the station. Students pick 6-7 words to focus on during the station, and add the foldable to their notebooks.

My kids’ FAVORITE center (even more than iPads) is STACKS. Below are picture from our prefix stacks that we did in January, and now we are playing root word stacks. How does it work? I write a root on the bottom of each cup and its meaning on the inside of the cup. I place the cups in a large Ziploc bag and students works in pairs. One partner grabs a cup. He/she defines the root and then, gives an example of a word that uses the prefix. The partner checks their work (mentally or using the answer I have written on the inside of the cup). If the partner answers correctly, they can add it to their cup pyramid. If incorrect, the cup goes back into the bag. Students work together to build the tallest possible pyramid in our 12 minute work period! Super fun, low maintenance, and great practice!

Happy day, friends!